Michelle Davis Orchetra Vice-preident
Challenge Yourself! Personal Motivation Leads to Classroom Inspiration
by guest author, Carrie Turner
Carrie Turner, D.M.A., is Orchestra Director for Lee’s Summit High School. As a conductor and clinician, she has worked with honors ensembles throughout the Midwest and enjoys teaching for summer camps including the Strings Chamber Music Festival for UCM and the Mark O’Connor camps at Berklee School
It happens at least once every year. Those dreaded words dropping from a student’s mouth like a 100lb weight: “I don’t like this piece.” My hackles raise, my fangs lower, and I coil for the attack. But then, I take a deep breath, count to five (which always seems more like 500), and ask “why?”
As we all know, the answers vary from “it’s too easy”, “it’s too hard’, “I want to play the melody”, and many other cherished phrases from our beloved students.
My musicians know that there are two four-letter words that make all others pale in comparison in my eyes: easy and hard. These words make my blood boil! Yet, students still insist on using this profanity in my rehearsal room. It makes me crazy! I know many of you are in the same camp, yet, how do we move past this? We all know that easy music is a wonderful way to work on the emotional aspects of playing: expression and musicality. We all know that the hard music is an awesome source of new teaching material for technique and developing grit. Dialogue is key in these moments in order to move forward. Probing dialogue that inspires and motivates. But what if I’m not inspired myself? What if the kids aren’t open to dialogue?
My standard response to the easy/hard music statement is always: “They are just little black dots on a page. What’s the worst that can happen? They can’t judge you, they can’t taunt you, and they don’t determine your sense of self-worth.” This always leads to the conversation about being afraid of making mistakes and being judged. That topic,
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while worthwhile and important for all to discuss, doesn’t help when motivation and inspiration are down. It can be hard to get kids pumped up on this conversation alone. We need more, a special spark, we need inspiration.
Inspiration, that word that is so elusive and makes us dream of wondrous classroom Ah-Ha! moments akin to Mr. Holland’s Opus. But we live in reality, not in a movie. And we as teachers are so dedicated to our craft and the work that we do with the students, that we are left tired, drained, and often uninspired. Our students are so inundated with homework, jobs, and home-life problems, that I frankly feel honored that they are even blessing me with a tiny bit of attention. So what do we tap into as our source for inspiration so that the dialogue can begin?
This is where we reach the precipice. We ourselves must become the students again. We must put forth the effort to explore new territory, stretch out of our own comfort zone, build our chops, gain a new skill, meet new people. We must push past our own inertia of busyness and tiredness and have some fun! This is where this month’s theme of “Learning for Life” must resonate. If we ourselves aren’t willing to push out of our own comfort zones, how can we ever hope to motivate our students to trust us in guiding them forward through their own endeavors? A student who sees a teacher that is plugged into his or her own musical passions will notice that fire. It sparks interest, curiosity, and a potential for dialogue. Not to mention, life is more fun and interesting for us!
What gets you excited to be a musician? For me, I love the thrill of diving into an orchestral score, analyzing it, and figuring out how to wave my
See DAVIS, p. 17 MISSOURI SCHOOL MUSIC | Volume 71, Number 3
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